One of the cool things about having a seemingly never-ending TBR (to-be-read) pile is that you never actually run out of things to read. Sometimes you even forget you own books, and rediscovering them can be like buying them all over again (while keeping your wallet firmly closed). Add in a spinach and banana power smoothie (it’s good, I promise!) and a day spent by the pool reading Tim Seeley’s Vertigo series Effigy, and you’ve got yourself the makings of a NovelTEA column.
Plot summary
After a sex-tape scandal, former Hollywood child star turned Z-lister Chondra Jackson returns to her hometown of Effigy Mound, IL, to find a seemingly impossible crime; a fresh corpse in an ancient Indian burial site. Even weirder, the murder resembles a scene from an episode of her old TV show, Star Cop, a live-action children’s show about a kid detective.
As Chondra starts to investigate, she stumbles upon a bizarre cult that worships celebrities as eternal effigies. And these cult members aren’t just worshiping–they’re also ritually sacrificing anyone who defies their veneration of the beautiful and famous. Chondra’s probe takes her on a terrifying tour of burial mounds across the world, from Stonehenge to the Nazca Lines of Peru. But what is the link between the cult, Chondra’s hometown, and her own bloodline? Will Chondra become the hero detective she played as a child…or is she in fact the cult’s unwitting messiah?
Written by rising star Tim Seeley (BATMAN ETERNAL, GRAYSON, Revival) and illustrated by Marley Zarcone (Black Circle, MADAME XANADU), EFFIGY is a twisted murder mystery and conspiracy tale that examines celebrity, godhood, and the price of fame.
Worth reading?
It pains me to say this, but no. I read the first few issues of Effigy when it was just starting out, and I swear initial announcements touted a 12-issue run; I could be misremembering, but operating on the theory that I am, in fact, not: Seeley and Zarcone were forced to cram their 12-issue plot into a measly 7 instead. This is one of those cases where the creative team did the best they could with the time they had, but Effigy ended up a rushed, botched job anyway. The ideas presented were interesting, but due to forces outside the creative team’s control, the execution was lackluster.. Not their fault at all, but it is what it is. Now that Vertigo has been shuttered, with DC Black Label taking its place, I hope we’ll get genuinely different books with proper beginnings, middles, and endings.
Flaws
The series starts off strong with a sort of grimly moody, psychotropic vibe and the characters promise to be interesting when they’ve had the time to flesh out— but the characters don’t have time to develop organically, and so emotional moments don’t land the way you know they should, and the plot literally stops right on the edge of a cliffhanger to dive into something else… and that’s it. That’s the end. You don’t know what happens to Chondra, Grant, Edie, or anyone else. Nothing is ever resolved. Sure, you could use the power of imagination to fill in the blanks, but the characters aren’t memorable enough for that sort of effort. The weird, sinister brain-f*ck parts of this story end up ripping pages from L. Ron Hubbard’s playbook, which, again, fell flat. Honestly, maybe the story just wasn’t for me— but a proper 12-issue run of Effigy could’ve made all the difference.
Rating: 1.5/5
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